The World Health Organization is calling for expressions of interests from African research consortia on multidisciplinary research on population health vulnerabilities due to vector-borne diseases (VBDs) in dryland socio-ecological systems African dryland areas.
13 July 2012: The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) is calling for expressions of interest for a research initiative on improving resilience to vulnerabilities to vector-borne diseases (VDBs) under conditions of climate change in Africa.
Funded by the Canadian International Research Development Institute (IDRC), the initiative aims to support multidisciplinary research on population health vulnerabilities due to vector-borne diseases in dryland socio-ecological systems with a particular focus on the Sahel and the Southern and Eastern African drylands.
The initiative’s objectives are: to provide evidence of the relationships between population vulnerability to VBD and climate change; develop tools and propose stakeholder-driven adaptation strategies; and improve researchers’ capabilities and facilitate the uptake of the research results by policy makers.
Research funding is available for three year-projects conducted in a well-defined dryland socialecological system of an African country with an embedded water system. Projects should: investigate VBD transmission and burden under various conditions and vulnerability in order to assess potential impacts and develop resilience strategies; and aim to develop applicable adaptation and resilience strategies in real life settings.
The call is directed at multi-disciplinary African research teams or consortia affiliated with institutions and is not open to individuals. The deadline for submissions is 10 September 2012. [WHO Call for Applications][WHO-TDR Website]